Mouthful of Poison
by bandagesisfinished
Summary: Jenova has claimed Cloud Strife as her second son. What will Avalanche do, caught between the Calamity, Shinra, and the end of the world – with a familiar face staring at them from the other side of the battle lines? Timeline Divergent AU
1. Shining in the Darkness

Author's Notes: Timeline Divergent AU at the end of the first disc, under the City of Ancients. Shit happens. Ignore the author's propensity toward weirdness.

Warnings: Strong language, violence, blood, psychological torture, character death (duh), future slash.

Feedback - especially concrit - is encouraged, loved, and stared adoringly at.

Disclaimer: Not mine, not makin' money.

* * *

This sparkling water and crystal city looked like spun sugar, the candy-glass Cloud's mother had once made on Saturday afternoons. The sweets were granted because of guilt and as an apology for the things she had to close her eyes to; somehow, this place managed the same sad, quiet desperation. What could Aeris hope to manage here in such a fragile, damaged, beautiful world? 

_She wants, _something hissed in his head, a malevolent other-thought fighting past the constant buzz of mako and a presence more benign. _She wants to…_

"What?" Cloud murmured, though his better sense told him to ignore the voice.

Tifa placed a hand on his arm. He stopped for her and the rest of the group stopped with him, too enchanted by the place to do anything but follow. Her big red-brown eyes were wide with worry (_Cloud's talking to himself what do we do what do I do if he goes away in his head?_), but he shook off her grip and ignored the concern, continuing forward.

_Aeris, _someone familiar pleaded, but it sounded like Cloud's own thoughts. How did he know they weren't? _Please don't._

_Kill her, _the other-thought growled.

_Stop it._

_Stop _her! _Kill her!_

_Shut up!_

The argument in his head was so loud it was making him feel all fuzzy. He wished they'd take it somewhere else – he'd be just peachy with only his own mind for company. He didn't _want _to kill anyone; Mama had taught him better than that.

Cloud scowled.

"Both of you shut up," he whispered, concentrating on the mako hum instead.

"Cloud," Tifa ventured, "no one's talking."

He tried to smile at her, made an attempt at reassuring and came out awkward. "Does it matter? They can shut up anyway."

He knew, somewhere in his lingering rationality, that that had been a wrong thing to say. He felt childish and cottony, like someone had pressed a pillow over his face and some parts of his brain didn't have enough air to function right. Of course, no one could do that to him now.

Soldier.

"Cloud?" Tifa asked again.

"We have to find Aeris." A sharp snap of purpose cutting through the haze.

Tifa nodded, assured now that Cloud was back on track. He almost felt bad that 'slightly focused' was all they could ask of him, sometimes. Tifa, especially – the rest of the group didn't rely on him half as much as she pretended to. Cloud didn't count himself stupid; he knew that half of her 'hero' talk was out of guilt. She wanted him to feel needed. A quick glance over his shoulder proved that none of the others were really even paying attention to him, engaged in their own quiet conversations, more subdued than usual. Even Yuffie and Barret were near silent, Yuffie passing the time by showing him how to fold paper animals from faded gil notes as they walked.

The whole group was tenser than they wanted to let on. Aeris's disappearance had been a worry, Cloud's increasingly erratic behavior a burden. He knew that, and still couldn't _help it. _They didn't, couldn't, know what it was like to have these things in his head, pushing and pulling at him incessantly, telling him to do things he never wanted to do.

Telling him to hurt her, and he had.

He wanted desperately to believe he hadn't been just dreaming her forgiveness. If they found her here, that dream, everything she'd said in it, was true. …And there was one more person capable of invading his thoughts and dreams, but with Aeris he found he didn't mind so much. It was always that way with her; if anyone else did the things she did - the teasing and dresses and her fascination for playing with his hair – he'd be over and done with them very quickly.

"Aeris!" Tifa gasped, and Cloud snapped his attention to the outside world.

Aeris had never looked very ethereal at all, even when she was wandering around strange forests in his dreams; there was a quality about her that spoke of solid earth and trees with deep roots, flowers blossoming where no flowers should be. She looked ethereal now, otherworldly and disconnected. He didn't like it.

"Aeris!" He echoed when she didn't stir.

He'd never seen anyone so still, so frighteningly serene. Not even the pink folds of her dress, draped prettily around her bended knees, stirred in the still air, her breath didn't flutter her bangs. She looked like one of those pretty dolls from Wutai, beautifully crafted and eerily still, with glass eyes that fluttered open to stare at you when you tipped their heads back. She looked like a corpse.

Years ago, he would have had to scramble to make his way up the glass platforms leading to her strange little tower. Now, he did it with such grace that he didn't even need to think about it.

_Interfering little liar! _The other-thought shrieked, the grating female mixing with a demanding male timber that Cloud found frighteningly irresistible. _Get rid of her!_

His hands scrambled at the hilt of his sword, the movements awkward and jerky; his head suddenly ached fiercely, his fingers half numb.

_Cloud, you can't –_

A shriek from the female half of the other-thought cut off the better voice, muffled it and wrapped it in layers of _do it do it kill her kill her the bitch do it!_

His sword finally yanked free of its sheath, materia glistening strangely in their recesses. Cloud noticed with almost surprised disconnect that he was trembling. Why? What was he doing? He suddenly couldn't remember much - just that he had something very important…

To protect?

_To kill!_

"What the hell are you _doin'_?"

People, angry people, buzzing in the background. If he didn't finish this, they'd stop him. He was strong, he was Soldier: individually they could not take him down, but together they were capable. They wanted to stop him from getting rid of the –

_Interference, spawn of interference, liars both_

- Doll girl in front of him, whatever she'd done. She'd had to have done something, or the other-thought wouldn't be so vehement. When people did bad things, they were punished. He'd learned that lesson as a child.

The motion had been made hundreds of times – the smooth draw back of sword, the effortless lunge…the too soft yield of flesh and the cracking of bones as they snapped under the pressure of dull metal.

Punishment, the ultimate penalty for wrongs committed. What could make a person understand their sins more than their own death? Nothing, nothing at all in this world. In those moments of pain, bleeding as she died, suffering as she did, perhaps she understood.

Or perhaps she didn't. It wasn't any of his concern, as long as she was dead.

_Yes._

Someone screamed his name; others screamed one unfamiliar to him. Did it belong to her? Who was –

Aeris!

Sanity returned to him like a bullet to the brain. He opened his mouth to scream, but choked on the half formed sound, a crying little whimper. Her eyes, those beautiful green eyes, had snapped open. Blood, blood, she was bleeding and he'd done it his sword was still in her and her eyes were going glassy because he'd tipped her back too far and her eyelids had fluttered open –

_I forgive you._

The world tipped sideways, upside down. He dropped to his knees, the momentum dragging the sword out of her, and she, too, dropped. Dropped to the beautiful, blood soaked, spun sugar floor.

_Good boy, _purred the other-thought.

•••

Tifa stood frozen halfway to the platform, bile rising in her throat. The world had exploded: the others shouted behind her, shocked curses mingling with commands for her to _move, damn it_;Aeris's pretty little hair ornament gave a soft little clink-clink and then rolled into the water; Cloud knelt in the blood he'd drawn and made wounded animal sounds.

That hadn't just happened.

That _had not _just happened. It couldn't have. Cloud wouldn't…do that.

He would; he had.

A strong arm wrapped around hers, drew her back down the platform, and she vaguely recognized Barret's voice cutting through the shock.

"Come on, girl. Now's not the time to lose it."

As if she could do anything else! Aeris was dead; Aeris was dead and Cloud had killed her! Barret should be charging up there and – and –

Tifa clamped her hands over her mouth and shrieked, the noise muffled by leather gloves. Whirling, she buried her face in Barret's vest, trying to block out the memory of Cloud's sword and Aeris's blood, trying to block out the sound of Cloud sobbing and retching. Barret held her as gently as he did his daughter, but she could feel the rumbling growl of anger building in his chest. He _wanted _to charge up there and kill Cloud, and the only reason he didn't was because Tifa was there.

Obviously, Barret thought to leave the charging and killing to others, to the footsteps slapping on the ground as they leapt up toward the tower: Aeris's avenging angels going to strike down her champion.

Tifa sobbed.

•••

Aeris! Aeris was there and she was _okay _and hadn't run off to join a cult or anything! She was acting sort of zombie-like and weird, but that would be okay because Cloud would snap her out of it. There was nothing Aeris enjoyed more than teasing Cloud and she wouldn't stay all zombiefied if she was presented with the chance.

Hold the phone – what was Cloud _doing? _The situation did not call for swords! No pointy objects needed to be employed at all, really, because this was Aeris and –

Cloud –

She was, he had…but…

Yuffie had seen people die before. Because, really, hello? Ninja, Wutai, old people, whatever. But this…this was…

So many levels of _sheer fucking wrong. _At least sixty! So many levels!

She screamed someone's name – Cloud's or Aeris's or maybe just sheer gibberish her brain was _trying _to connect together as a name but was actually 'dearsweetohfuck!'. Aeris – dear, sweet, crazy, fun Aeris – had just been _gutted _by Cloud – cute, dorky _bad crazy _Cloud. Oh, bad mental touch. So, so wrong.

Yuffie couldn't quite express her feelings in words.

"Mother fucker!" Cid could.

"Mother fucker!" She repeated, because she honestly couldn't think of anything else to say.

This was bad. Bad, bad, bad.

Yuffie scrambled up the platforms behind Vincent, ninja grace failing her once or twice. She didn't know what she wanted to kill, but she was damn well going to put her shuriken right through _something_.

•••

Vincent was well used to seeing his comrades kill people, even friends or allies; it was the fact of being a Turk. It was this experience, and only this experience, that kept him from panicking _completely. _The others had that aspect firmly in hand already – Cid's vocabulary had become exclusively limited to the word 'fuck', and Yuffie wasn't far behind.

One fact remained: Cloud had become dangerously unstable. A liability, to be a Turk about it, and liabilities were removed before they could put their swords through anyone else. Vincent couldn't stop a shudder. Aeris had been a good, nice girl, and an honest person. Those traits had been a rarity in his time, and the world had only gotten worse since then.

She hadn't deserved death, especially not like that.

He made a quick ammo check on quicksilver, his faster reflexes bringing him to the crystal tower before the others. His fingers clicked back the safety almost without his brain asking them to, the barrel of his gun leveled firmly and unerringly at the back of Cloud's head.

Yet, for the first time in his life, before the coffin or otherwise, Vincent Valentine's fingers refused to pull the trigger. It wasn't, he thought, any sentimentality or strong emotional attachment to the man he'd seen as 'leader' for a time, but a barely heard command in his blood. Something Hojo had left there, telling him, unequivocally, _no_; no doubt that if he disobeyed, Galian Beast would be called to the forefront for all the wrong reasons.

No other allies were going to die today; Vincent lowered his gun and hoped he wouldn't have to explain the action later.

The weapon was jerked back up a split second later, but it was not the sobbing heap of Cloud he aimed at. Sephiroth's descent – where had he come from, and how had he been there without attracting Vincent's notice? – was almost eerie, slow and graceful. His hair drifted around his face as he set down his boots soundlessly into Aeris's spreading pool of blood.

Vincent was distantly aware of Yuffie standing beside him now, her shuriken drawn back and ready to strike, but she didn't know at whom to aim. She was too young; she was hesitating.

_So are you, _he reminded himself.

There was something about Sephiroth that froze the blood, made you want to back up instead of charging forward. Vincent didn't know if Sephiroth's presence had always felt this _wrong_, but recognized the trait as inherited from Hojo. The wise thing to do would be to shoot him, but as much as Sephiroth had inherited from his father, the angles of the face and the grace of his movement were all her, all Lucrecia.

Damning himself for a fool, Vincent holstered his gun and lunged forward, his clawed fingers sinking into the back of Cloud's shirt. Unfortunately, Sephiroth was just as fast, darting over Aeris's fallen, broken body to snatch Cloud out of Vincent's grip. Cloud didn't even struggle as his shirt ripped down the back and Sephiroth lifted him into his arms.

"So sad," Sephiroth purred. "So broken, my pretty puppet."

Sephiroth coolly ducked out of the path of Yuffie's shuriken, ignored the hum of materia spells being charged.

"I'll allow the rest of you to live today," he said lightly, as if he were handing down some great mercy. "If you can survive her."

Faster than even Vincent could react, Sephiroth was gone – and Cloud with him.

•••

Tifa cast a low level cure spell on Yuffie's wounded arm, ignoring for a moment the teenager's completely age-inappropriate curses. Now was not the time to chastise anyone, and Tifa couldn't work up the energy, besides. She'd pulled herself together to fight against the bit of Jenova Sephiroth had left behind for them, but mostly her body had been running entirely on autopilot. A significant portion of her thoughts was going toward the desperate attempt to block out what she'd just seen.

The world had become perfectly silent and delicate; the only sound the harsh panting of their breath, the only movement the soft flickering of fire from Nanaki's tail. Aeris lay in front of them, eyes open and staring at nothing, her skin too pale, her hair and dress stained with blood – a corpse, a body, nothing more. Yuffie was the first to break down again, small sniffles gradually increasing into hiccups and then violent sobs as she buried her face in Tifa's shoulder. Tifa hugged her close and gave herself over to tears again, the two girls sharing their grief together.

Nanaki's howl added an eerie backdrop to the sounds of crying, his own expression as pure as the human tears he could not shed. Tifa could hear Barret's growling sobs, and she chanced a glance up at him. He'd never been above crying, when anger wasn't his first reaction, and Aeris certainly deserved his tears. Cait Sith had hung his head, a robot parody of emotion, and Cid and Vincent just…stared. Cid was smoking and when he handed the cigarette over to Vincent the other man accepted it without a word.

After the nicotine was spent between them, Vincent ground the butt out under his heel and unfastened his cloak. Tifa blinked in shock, not quite processing what he was doing as he took the dark red material and laid it over Aeris, picking up her body to wrap her in it, covering up those staring eyes. He picked her up, cradling her almost gently in arms both real and mechanical.

Cid walked over to lend a hand to Yuffie as Barret helped Tifa up, and Tifa suddenly felt very young for her twenty-two years. What had ten or twenty (or more, in Vincent's case) added to these lives that made the older men so calm? She'd seen things, horrible things that had changed her mind and life forever, but not half as much as Barret had seen. She knew his story, a bit, and could only guess at Cid or Vincent's.

"He killed her," Yuffie whispered, voice hoarse. "They're both gone."

"I know, kid," Cid said.

"I'll fucking kill him," she said, hand tightening around her shuriken. "I will!"

Cid just nodded. "I _know_, kid."

Tifa knew she was supposed to want Cloud dead. He'd just killed Aeris in cold blood, and now stood in a position to do even more harm. But she couldn't bear to wish that, couldn't stand the thought of losing another loved one. It was her fault; she should have _noticed _more or _done _something about what she did notice. Cloud had been skirting the edge of dangerous for weeks now, and they'd all seen that at the Temple of the Ancients.

It wasn't his fault, it couldn't be.

"Tifa," Barret started, and she winced. He'd know what she was thinking. "We can't let 'im get away with…"

_This._

"Barret."

"He's a crazy bastard. …just didn't think he was _that _crazy, y'know?"

She knew.

"Fuck," Yuffie muttered again.

"And watch your damn language, young lady," Cid chided, voice familiar with exasperated tolerance.

The world abruptly snapped back to normal. Vincent was holding Aeris's body and Cloud was gone but…they were still here, and there were things that still had to be done. Whatever Sephiroth and Jenova planned to do with Cloud, it wasn't going to be anything approaching good for them or the planet.

"What do we do?" Tifa managed.

Vincent looked down at the limp red bundle in his arms. "We find a place for her, first. She deserves it."

"And then we kick some spiky blond ass!" Yuffie declared, waving her shuriken for emphasis, her tear-streaked face vicious.

"It's not his fault!" Tifa objected. "We have to worry about Sephiroth and Jenova first, and see if we can get him back."

"Back?" Barret demanded. "He's a murderer, Tifa! We don't want him back!"

The betrayal had obviously stung Barret much deeper than he was comfortable admitting.

"He didn't want to!"

He opened his mouth to retort, probably to yell, but Cid's sharp whistle cut them off.

"Save it, you two! We can have the family spats _later._"

Tifa didn't think it was Cid's place to get huffy about anyone yelling at other people, considering his own track record, but kept her mouth shut.

"Cid's right," Nanaki added, padding over to nudge Tifa's leg affectionately. "And so is Vincent. Aeris deserves to be honored like a Cetra."

"But where?" Cait Sith – or Reeve, if he had control of the cat, now – asked.

Tifa thought for a long moment. "The lake," she answered. "The one outside. It seems…a good place."

If there was any such thing as a good place for a funeral.


	2. Filling in the Rabbit Hole

As always, love to my beta and all who reviewed!

•••

"Shouldn't you be in the infirmary?" Rufus asked, but he didn't have any polite undertones of worry. If Tseng should be in the infirmary, he should be in the infirmary, and Rufus was going to be peeved if he got himself put out of commission longer because he was standing in front of the president's desk at three in the morning, blue suit freshly pressed and all.

"Hojo is gone," Tseng said, staring at a point somewhere in the window behind Rufus. All of the Turks did that.

Rufus's hand stuttered in the movement of reaching for his stapler, efficient smoothness failing him for one telling moment. "…excuse me?"

"Professor Zohan Hojo is AWOL from Shinra Headquarters," Tseng recited briskly, because Tseng knew nothing if he didn't know protocol. "Somehow, large measures of his living experiments have disappeared with him, though no other staff members are missing."

Rufus took a long moment to damn everything he could think of, starting the list at his dead father (just for the hell of it), running down through Hojo and all his staff, and ending with Cloud Strife for reasons he couldn't currently explain. Wrenches in his plans were not appreciated, and this wasn't just a wrench – this was the whole set of power tools. Hojo was important, if only because he had some idea of what the hell was going on; Rufus knew he was bound to drop dead or just disappear eventually, but he'd thought the man would have the grace to leave some research behind.

"His journals?" He asked Tseng, once his mental litany of cursing was concluded.

Tseng's shrug was almost apologetic. "Gone as well."

He'd figured as much, but every little possibility had to be checked. Damn it, this was the last thing he'd needed, with so much already on his plate. Bad enough that they hadn't quite figured out why Sephiroth was pulling a walking dead – though Hojo, the bastard, had probably known and just didn't feel up to telling anyone – and weren't sure what direction to take with that; now they were left almost completely in the dark. All he needed was for Avalanche to blow up a reactor and he could call it a day, so it was a good thing they were otherwise occupied.

"Get Reno and Rude on it," Rufus ordered, gathering up his thoughts. "And then go back to bed."

Tseng looked for a moment like he wanted to object, but saluted crisply and left the room without a word.

Rufus dropped his head to the heel of his palm. "I need a scotch," he murmured to the buzzing of the fluorescent lights.

•••

There wasn't a living monster left between the City of the Ancients and their chosen campsite. The outlet for anger and pain couldn't have been ignored, and they were all trying to exhaust themselves. Tired people didn't think well, didn't dwell on what had just happened. Zombies had perkier campsites.

Barret stroked Tifa's hair gently, trying to offer some comfort to her. She looked so little and torn up, like he'd never seen her, like he'd never wanted to see her. Tifa was a strong girl, through and through, and deserved better from life than what it had given her. It made him feel like throttling someone, make no mistake.

They were all sort of sharing first watch, milling around and staring at nothing with blank and tired eyes, conversation sparse and taut. Barret could feel it like a fuse being lit, the deceptive, tiny crackle of flame right before the big bomb went 'boom'; he'd felt it before, in Corel, in Sector Seven. Maybe the shit had already hit the fan, but it was also preparing to go south in a huge fucking way.

He'd liked Cloud – they all had – and that was what made it worse. Or, maybe, the most horrible part of it was they'd all liked Aeris just as damn much, and her affection for Cloud had been plain as day, and visa versa. Cloud had been an asshole in the beginning, sure, but he'd also given Marlene a flower and sometimes his arrogant veneer would accidentally chip off a little, and he'd smile like a dork and his step would bounce just a little and he'd act like a kid. Aeris had _always_ been smiling, even if she was being a complete ass to someone - girl had a mischievous streak a mile wide, didn't even try to hide it. Too young, both of them, and sometimes it felt like Cloud was even younger than 'too young'.

"I…" Tifa started; fluttered off.

"S'alright, girl," Barret said, because there was nothing else he could say. He'd learned a long, long time ago that there were no magical words that were going to make it better.

Right now, he just wanted to find Sephiroth or Cloud or who the hell _ever _and rip their throats out for what they'd done. It might not fix the situation, but it would make him feel a sight more pleasant.

"We need to figure out what we're doing," Nanaki said, staring at them with old-young cat eyes. "Aeris's soul has joined with the planet now and…"

Whatever well of preternatural calm Nanaki usually drew from was obviously failing him, his words more his grandfather's than his own. He was saying those things because he thought Bugenhagen would approve of them, not because he honestly 'knew' that they should move on. In any case, his own idea or not, Red _was _right – shit had to be done, even in the worst of times.

"We'll keep on going," Tifa choked out. "We'll stop Shinra and Sephiroth and that _bitch_ Jenova. Cloud would have wanted it that way."

"He ain't dead," Barret pointed out, trying to keep the heavily implied 'yet' out of his tone; no use upsetting Tifa further.

Vincent looked up from a dismantled sidearm. "If Jenova has him, he's as good as." A long pause. "Or worse."

Barret glared at him. "Why the hell can't you just _try _actin' a little sensitive, for once?"

"Because acting like everything is coming up fucking roses is going to do a hell of a lot of good," Cid snapped, fumbling at the battered pack tucked away in his goggles for another cigarette.

"Watch your mouth," Barret growled.

Tifa he trusted because she was Tifa and damned if he didn't love her like a part of his own family. Nanaki he accepted and believed in because he'd been wronged by Shinra, deeply. Yuffie was just a silly, stupid, misguided kid, and Barret knew where he stood with Cait Sith and his controller. Cid Highwind, however, he didn't trust and couldn't read, and it was ten times worse with Vincent Valentine. They both had Shinra stamped all over them, though at least with Cid he knew _why. _

Those two just worked into his temper like splinters and _lodged _there. They were supposed to be allies, through and through, but Barret always felt like they weren't on the same page. Sure, Highwind was pissed at Shinra, but it wasn't the soul deep rage that came with the wrongs Barret and Tifa had gone through; it was personal, plain and simple. Vincent was just a lunatic Cloud had taken a shine to, which was becoming less and less a reason to trust him.

"Yup, we'll just sit here and have a damn picnic. The world is fucking _shiny._" Cid made an irritated hand gesture that ended with a finger jab toward Tifa. "The girl can shape up, 'cause Red's right – we've got shit to do."

"Screw you," Tifa hissed.

Despite being a top notch martial artist, she didn't generally get confrontational, but Barret didn't blame her for finding the end of her temper. Hell, he was holding himself back from encouraging her.

•••

The so-called adults were acting like, well, adults, and Yuffie just found that endlessly depressing. They'd had an awful day, but they'd all managed to keep it sort of together until they'd made camp, and normalcy sent things straight to hell. Adults were like that, including stupid Godo, and it seemed Cid shared her father's trait of being absolutely calm in a crisis, but freaking out as soon as the little things settled in. Or maybe he'd just been in too much shock to really lay into the screaming until now.

In _any _case, she wished they'd shut up. She was tired and hungry and her head felt all heavy from the crying and her heart felt all heavy because Aeris and Cloud were _gone. _She might have been the youngest, but at least she could see when being bitchy wasn't going to help anybody. Ripping each other limb from limb _really _wouldn't help anybody, but Barret and Cid seemed about ready to go at it. Battle lines had been drawn, and it was like being in a group of teenage girls again – everybody suspicious of everybody and the whole lot of them ready to burst into tears or bitch fighting at the drop of a hat.

From the way Vincent was quickly reassembling his gun, somebody might get their kneecaps shattered instead of their hair pulled. Vincent just seemed like a kneecap shattering sort of person.

Somebody said something about someone and the shouting voices reached one pissed off crescendo; Barret leapt to his feet and Cid grabbed his spear, both of them growling either like animals or like really irritated old dudes. Well, there was a reason Yuffie had been unchallenged princess of her peers, and it wasn't just heritage. She was damn good at hair pulling.

Her shuriken whistled through the air between the two men, and they startled out of their attack stances to stare at her. She caught it on its return path, glaring at them and stomping her foot.

"Act like grown-ups!" She waved the weapon for emphasis. "Because _nothing _you are doing is helping and I have a headache and you're driving me _nuts!_"

Okay, so her voice kept cracking and she was constantly about five seconds away from crying, but damn it, they got her point. She hoped they did, anyway. She liked Cid and was developing some sort of buddy-buddy thing with Barret, and didn't want to see them blow each other up. Enough people had killed each other today, honestly.

"Kisaragi has a point," Vincent said, looking and sounding for all the world like he was agreeing with her on a lunch choice. "Arguing is counterproductive."

That took the wind out right out of Cid's sails, and he sat back down on his log of choice, lighting a cigarette and grumbling. Barret stayed standing and kept glaring, but one more petulant foot stomp from Yuffie and he went back to making sure Tifa kept _her _temper. Who ever said tantrums didn't solve anything?

Yuffie managed a smile, though it was probably a little cracked. "Hey, Vinny, thanks for backing me up."

He shrugged, the motion minimal. "Wisdom from the mouths of children."

"I'm sixteen," she shrieked, just because rehashing old arguments kept her grounded.

"Children," Vincent repeated.

"Young _woman_."

They all exchanged a Look, one that was far too amused for Yuffie's taste, even if it did dispel a bit more of the tension in the atmosphere.

She'd just stopped them from killing each other and they called her a kid! Stupid adults.

…but things were starting to function just a little better.

•••

Reno liked to break bones in two-four time; it provided a nice back beat to the song he was trying very hard to annoy Rude with. Unfortunately, the scientist's screaming rather got in the way of his brilliant musical symphony, and Reno found himself hoping the bastard would either admit he knew something or just _die _already. There were five more of Hojo's staff members to go through, and he knew this delightful little number in six-eight…

This wasn't really in his job description. Okay, it was, but usually it was understood that Tseng and Elena took the torture department. They were better at it than Reno and Rude, more patient than one and subtler than both. Really, who was Reno to deny Elena the little delights of her day? She'd wanted to try out how well those expensive new leather shoes of hers went with office work.

But Tseng was all laid up with a bad case of the maimed, and Elena couldn't yet be trusted to do this on her own; brain splatter all over the ceiling was a bitch of a thing to explain to the janitors.

Hojo's flunkey stopped screaming, and Reno shifted his grip on the aluminum baseball bat to rest it on his shoulder (he liked using the more traditional tools – crude, yet effective).

"You get all that, buddy?" He asked Rude, grinning cheekily at him.

"Yup," Rude said, and decided not to elaborate.

They'd taken turns with the clipboard and the pen that kept running out of ink, one leaning against the wall and writing down whatever screamed confession the other got out of cowering little nerds with ego trips. So far, Rude was winning on the Implicating Information scale, mostly because he'd gotten Hojo's chief assistant to admit that he liked to wear women's clothing.

Rude had an admirable talent for intimidation.

"Don't know why the boss can't do this by himself," Reno whined. "You know he'd enjoy it."

"He has an image," Rude reminded him.

"He just doesn't want to get blood all over his sissy suit."

"Really now, Reno?"

Neither of them turned toward the doorway, as they'd both known Rufus had been hovering there since before the scientist had kicked it. They were, after all, Turks, and Rufus would have been disappointed in them otherwise.

"Really, boss, it just doesn't scream 'Lord of the World', you know?" Reno pivoted on one foot to face Rufus, his free hand fisted on his hip. "You should look for something a little more gangster."

Rufus raised an eyebrow in a perfectly calculated and attractive expression of polite disbelief. "…you want me to wear bling, Reno?"

Reno flipped him a thumbs up. "It'd be fabulous, boss!"

"None of the staff we've questioned so far knows where Hojo's gone," Rude interrupted them, before the conversation could veer off into parts unknown.

"But!" Reno chimed in. "All of the experiments he took were related to the Jenova project, even if he didn't officially admit it."

Rude flipped back through a few sheets of paper on the clipboard, pointedly ignoring any bullets that addressed women's clothing or tic-tac-toe games. "We think he may have left behind data-based back up journals…"

"Nobody's giving up a password, though." Reno shook his head sadly. "They don't know what's good for them."

"Could someone hack into the system for them?" Rufus asked, stepping gingerly around a puddle of blood to appropriate the clipboard from Rude.

"'Lena might be able to. She's getting pretty good with the shiny electronic things."

Reno strongly suspected Elena was developing as many indispensable talents as possible, so they couldn't 'retire' her for her habit of running off at the mouth; he'd long been employing that tactic himself.

Rufus stared down at the clipboard. "Do I even want to know what you two do in your spare time?"

"No sir," Rude said.

Reno bounded over, unconcerned the mess he stepped in. "Is that the page with the stick figures?"

"Drawn in blood," Rufus confirmed, tilting the clipboard sideways. "Having sex?"

"I'm an artist, boss!"

"Of course." Rufus handed the clipboard back with unruffled aplomb. "Tell Elena to get working on the science department's computer system, but go through the rest of Hojo's assistants and see if there isn't anything else they're hiding."

"Man, when is Tseng gonna be up?"

"Evidently, when he stops listening to me telling him to go back to bed. Get back to work, gentlemen."

Reno and Rude gave identical, crisp salutes and set to work on cleaning up the room a little before they dragged in the next whimpering ball of scientist.

•••

Elena clutched her sixth cup of coffee to her chest and peered over her reading glasses at a computer screen that was rapidly becoming blessedly more coherent. When all else failed, she always knew she could turn to caffeine and three in the morning to be her answer to all of life's problems. The encryptions and false files and passwords had all been finicky, but Hojo hadn't been a _computer _genius; a few of the tricks she'd learned from Reeve and the whole thing had tumbled like a house of cards.

Well, if a house of cards took five hours to tumble, but Reeve had also said that computers were delicate and took time. She wandered distractedly what he'd think of her use of his lessons – Reeve was, unfortunately, a very nice man. Otherwise, she might have taken him out to dinner already.

(He had lovely hair, after all, but there was just something unutterably attractive about Tseng's ability to break people's necks with perfect precision - but she digressed. A lot.)

"Bingo," she whispered triumphantly. It was a simple text document, completely unassuming in every way except its contents. The abbreviations and personal codes might take a while to sort through, but the main thing was she'd gotten it.

Elena saved it to an outside drive, printed it out for good measure, and then wiped any trace of Hojo's files off the system; if she could get in, so could other people. Folding up her reading glasses, she tucked them in the breast pocket of her suit and allowed herself to stretch like a contented cat. Reno owed her lunch every time she did something 'Really Turkish!', and she had the feeling she'd want steak tomorrow.

For now, though, she was hopped up on about seven gallons of caffeine and Reeve deserved a thank you. If she couldn't have Tseng take her out for a romantic night of lobster and the shooting range, the least she could have was a _look _at a far too nice man.

"Secretary?" She called, knocking briskly on his door. Receiving no answer, she frowned – Reeve practically lived here, why wasn't he in his office? Unless he was, and…

The door was locked, but Turk Rule Number Fifty Two was that locks never stopped them. A bobby pin and a few muffled curse words later, Elena swung Reeve's door open. Maybe he'd snapped, gone on a bender, and passed out.

Reeve _was _at his desk. He did not, however, appear to be quite all in his head. He had his face dropped into his hands, and his posture looked even more pathetically limp than usual. What looked like the parts to a remote controlled toy lay scattered across his desk, along with a tiny television monitor and a headset.

"Secretary?" She tried again, honestly worried now. "Reeve, are you okay?"

He snapped his attention back to the land of the living, yanking his head up to stare at her with hazel eyes that were disconcertingly glazed. Okay, if he'd gone on a bender, it had been a _drug _one.

"Elena?"

"Yes." She walked over to his desk to peer down at him. "Do I need to call the med staff?"

"No." He shook his head vehemently. "No! I just…"

"What?"

Reeve seemed to crumple a little. "You know the work I was doing with Cait Sith? And Avalance?"

"That project was terminated after the failure at the Temple of the Ancients," Elena said, her hand inching toward her shoulder holster. Something was very, very wrong here; she could sense it.

"It was." He ran a hand through his hair. "It was supposed to be. They're good people, though, Elena, I couldn't –"

Oh, great, now she was going to have to execute Reeve in his messy corner office because he hadn't been lucid enough at three in the morning to figure out that there were things you just didn't mention to a member of the Turks.

"Reeve," she said warningly, drawing her pistol. "I'm sorry, but…"

He held up a hand. "Don't. Elena, you have to listen to me," he pleaded. "Something has gone terribly wrong. It's about Hojo, and Sephiroth."

Lowering her gun, she cocked her head to the side curiously. "Sephiroth?"

Reeve took a great, trembling breath. "Sephiroth has taken Strife. He's so much stronger now…"

The startled little 'eep' noise Elena made was so beyond dignified she didn't even try to justify it to herself. Reaching across the desk, she yanked Reeve up out of his seat.

"We have to talk to the President!"

It looked like she wasn't getting her steak tomorrow after all.


	3. We're All Mad Here

I've discovered that this is the perfect piece to write at three in the morning when I'm in odd moods. Take that as you will. Love to my beta, Eva, for putting up with everything I throw into her inbox at every hour of the day.

•••

Reeve was not, as such, in a lot of trouble. Duplicity was downright expected in Shinra, and Rufus might have been disappointed had Reeve _not _tried something. Still, 'a little trouble' in this company was enough to get you unfortunately jettisoned off of the seventieth floor, fully detailed suicide letter neatly printed and signed, tucked under a fancy corporate paperweight on your desk. Very few people contemplated where 'a lot of trouble' got you, since it generally involved Turks.

If Turks got into a lot of trouble, well, it still involved Turks. Or, at least it had. Rufus hoped to hell none of his batch had internal troubles, because he didn't think he could turn them on each other. On top of that, he didn't particularly _want_ to; they were the closest thing to friends he had, and he guarded them just as well as they guarded him. They were with him now, Reno and Rude combating just-awake grumpiness, Elena abuzz and frantic, and Tseng very decidedly _not_ in the infirmary.

Reeve stared at them as if they were his death walking. Rufus stared levelly back, unconcerned with how the man reacted to the Turks, more preoccupied with the pale cast to Reeve's complexion, the too wide eyes and the shaking hands. Even during his protests to the plate dropping (and even Rufus had thought that a horrifically planed move on his father's part), Reeve had not been prone to true hysteria. A bit of a raised voice, maybe, and too much color in his cheeks, but none of this looking like he'd just gazed into the abyss and it had laughed in his face. Well, if any metaphorical abyss tried to laugh at Rufus, he'd shoot it.

"Talk," Rufus said, figuring that the to the point order would be simple enough to work its way through Reeve's haze.

"After Aeris disappeared, the group followed her to the Ancient's Capital. Cloud knew she was there, I don't know how. They never know how Cloud knows these things."

He was babbling, but Rufus paid that very little mind. He picked the important things out of Reeve's rambling; for one, he still identified Avalanche as 'them', not 'we'. It was Cait Sith, unmistakably, that was part of the group - not Reeve.

"And?" Rufus prompted.

"It was a trap. I think." Reeve rubbed his hands nervously together. "Cloud went…psychotic, to be plain and simple about it. Aeris was praying for something, not even paying attention to them, and Cloud killed her with no warning…" he trailed off, and his erratic motions stopped with his voice.

Reeve might not have been a part of Avalanche, but he was a bit of a bleeding heart and had probably formed light attachments to them through Cait Sith. A senseless murder _would _have hit him hard, but Rufus suspected that wasn't the real problem at hand. Even Reeve wasn't this easily shaken by one death, one betrayal, as brutal as it has probably been.

"Gainsborough is dead?" Tseng asked, his tone giving away nothing.

Reeve managed a shaky nod. "I'm sorry."

"It's none of my concern."

The Turks' bizarre affection for Aeris Gainsborough was a point Rufus had meant to address eventually; some small idea that he should tell them to back off and properly remove themselves, but he'd never gotten around to it. Rufus had just assumed, and rightly, that she was one of those people who could charm love out of a rock, and set about avoiding one on one contact with her through all means necessary. As leader of the Turks in every thing but name he could have been out helping to bring her in, but he didn't want anything to do with Hojo's experiments and he _really _didn't want anything to do with a personality capable of inspiring something resembling mercy in Tseng and Reno. Now that she was dead, at least he didn't have to worry about that.

Rufus wondered briefly if he'd ever stop thinking in terms of expediencies, advantages and opportunities, or if he'd really _want _to stop.

"Gainsborough's death would be a blow to Hojo's research if Hojo were still here," Rufus pointed out. "Besides removing a consort of Avalanche, I don't see how this concerns Shinra so gravely."

"Cloud's gone unstable in the most horrible way," Reeve explained. "And he's now in Sephiroth's possession."

"…possession," Rufus repeated slowly.

Elena raised her hand until Reno elbowed her grumpily in the side, reminding her that Turks did not _raise their hands _and wait for permission to speak. She cleared her throat awkwardly and waved around the sheaf of papers she'd been carrying.

"And if I understand these right – which I'm not necessarily sure I do, since Hojo makes about as much sense as a dyslexic chocobo on karaoke night – Strife was part of the experiments Hojo conducted in Nibelheim." She shuffled through the papers, a nervous gesture Rufus was sure Tseng would speak to her about.

"You know," Reno broke in, "when he first showed up with Avalanche, I looked up Strife's file. He's officially AWOL, MIA – just like Sephiroth. I just figured, you know, he said 'fuck it' and left."

"That's the story he gave Avalanche," Reeve said, gathering himself together. "He's had a few incidents before of self-control loss, but obviously nothing this _drastic._ He also showed a strong delusion toward believing that he'd achieved Soldier first class, but I did a little digging myself and he never even neared that rank, was never even Soldier."

"And nobody decided that Strife was bugfuck before this?" Reno asked.

Tseng cleared his throat, immediately silencing Reno. "Strife's mental stability and Shinra ranking before the incident have very little to do with the situation now."

Tseng, Rufus decided, was due for a raise or a complimentary company pocket watch or some such.

"What matters," Rufus continued Tseng's train of logic, "is that we have a man with Soldier capabilities and an unstable psyche _at this moment _under Sephiroth's influence. With Hojo - and the remnants of the Jenova Project - gone as well, I strongly suspect he also has a hand in this. Neither has cause to love us, and Sephiroth has actively struck against us before. Shinra stands in a very precarious position."

"Why does everyone always want to kill us?" Reno whined, and Elena elbowed him.

The puzzle pieces of a plan were clicking themselves together in Rufus's mind, the outline strong and the whole picture beginning to fill itself in. There was a way to make all of this benefit Shinra, he was sure, if they just acted quickly and decisively. Sephiroth and Strife had to be dealt with, Hojo had to be brought down, and Avalanche needed to be neutralized; Rufus was not prepared to fight a three front war.

Decision made, Rufus straightened in his chair despite early morning fatigue. "Reeve, first you're going to tell me everything you've learned from Avalanche about Sephiroth and Jenova. _Everything; _if they know it, I'd better have the information as well. And then, your little toy is going to become a very important messenger."

•••

Cid and Tifa were making breakfast. Cid and Tifa made all of their meals, as they'd declared everyone else so incompetent with cookware that it was physically painful. Yuffie watched Tifa fry their last bit of bacon and Cid smoke over the tea kettle, and took deep cleansing breaths. Hysteria had passed; clarity was settling in, even for the 'children'.

She glared at Vincent and he raised his eyebrows at her, though he probably knew perfectly well that she was still miffed about that comment. Stupid zombie man.

"Where are we going today?" Nanaki asked, trying to look sage and not as if he was edging closer to the cooking fire, Tifa's frying pan, and the promise of bacon.

Barret frowned. "We need to rest. Gotta get somewhere safe, where we can get supplies and a good sleep, or ain't none of us gonna be good for nothing."

"Rocket Town is the closest," Tifa said.

"Fuck that," Cid snapped. "If those bastards are following us or something, I'm not leading them straight to my damn town."

"I don't think they'd be able to find us," Vincent said. "Sephiroth was always following Cloud. We're none of his concern; below his notice."

"That's a cheerful thought," Cid noted almost absently, lighting his third cigarette of the morning off of the embers of his second.

Tifa sighed and tossed Nanaki a piece of bacon. "Rocket Town is the best choice, Cid."

"Fine, but if the house gets screwed up I'm letting Shera hold you fuck heads responsible."

Yuffie thought, for a moment, that it was very generous of Cid to let Shera do much of _anything _and made a mental note to have a talk with him that involved emotional abuse, empowered women, and kicking him in the shins.

Tifa looked like she wanted to argue some point, but Cait Sith crackled to life. The stuffed cat had mostly faded to the background of Yuffie's mind, being that it had been on stand by mode the entire night and morning.

"Miss Lockheart."

Nearly everyone looked up toward the robot, startled to hear Reeve's voice from it.

"Yes, Reeve?" Tifa answered, admirably steady.

"I talked to the President." Reeve's grave tone and pronouncement were completely out of place with Cait Sith's permanent smile and jauntily tilted crown; it made the whole situation somehow worse.

"You _what?_" Barret demanded. "Knew we shouldn't have trusted you! Stupid damn Shinra can't even keep your damn mouth shut!"

"_You _try keeping anything from the Turks," Reeve said darkly. "And the conclusions you drew about my loyalty are your problem, not mine."

Maybe Yuffie didn't know Reeve inside and out, but she'd never heard him that angry or tired before. He sounded like a Shinra Executive, finally, and she couldn't be enthused that she now knew exactly why he was walking with the likes of them. Not that she'd put a lot of stock in Reeve in the first place: Yuffie was from Wutai; she _knew _what anyone from Shinra was like, with a bone deep certainty.

"So the President knows," Tifa said, almost too calmly. "What did he say?"

"Shinra would like…" Cait-Reeve stared at them with hollow cat eyes. "The President would like to extend an offer of aid."

There was a moment of pure silence before everyone erupted into shouting. Yuffie, having had quite enough of shouting over the past day or so, shoved her fingers in her ears and childishly set about ignoring them completely. Screw Shinra and his offer of aid; they could take care of themselves, and she knew the others would stick by that. Nobody needed help from blood-sucking, parasitic, culture-killing bastards_, nobody._

Except when Yuffie finally removed her fingers from her ears a good ten minutes later it was just in time to hear Tifa let out a soft sigh and say 'fine'.

"Fine?" Yuffie yelped, in perfect unison with Barret's much fiercer objection.

"We barely know what's going on," Tifa said. "We don't know where Cloud is and now we don't even have the information he did. If we're going to get him back, we need help."

"And there's no one else who can help you," Reeve added.

Yuffie finally stood up from her seat on a slightly uncomfortable rock and stormed over to the stupid robotic cat and his stupid robotic controller. She wasn't altogether sure if Reeve could see her, but she waved a fist in Cait Sith's general direction anyway.

"We'll go to Wutai for help if we need to!"

Even if Godo would probably blow them off, even if her country had no help left to give themselves, much less anyone else. She'd have Wutai's blessings and nothing rather than Shinra's curse and bounty.

"Calm down, princess." From Cait Sith the nickname was endearing and affectionate; from Reeve it was patronizing and nearly rude. "This isn't about your personal problems. We're all facing a crisis here, and the President believes it would be beneficial for both of our groups if we at least talk."

"We'll meet you in Rocket Town," Tifa told him, completely ignoring the continued protests of Barret and Yuffie. "Someone can pick us up there."

That seemed to catch Cid's attention. "You better not send one of those pieces of shit helicopters. Those things might get you around Midgar, but I've worked on the engines and I don't trust 'em."

Reeve sighed. "We'll send the Highwind, if we can clear it with Palmer."

"Tell Palmer that if he _doesn't _clear it I'm running his fat ass over with a truck. Again."

Yuffie got the distinct impression that someone somewhere was rolling their eyes.

"I'll see what I can do."

And then Cait Sith's eyes went blank again, and the robotic cat slumped over. Evidently, Reeve wasn't going to grace them with the AI personality of his creation anymore.

For a moment, Yuffie couldn't decide whether to yell at Tifa (for agreeing to this _shit_) or yell at Cid (for having what passed for polite conversation with Reeve-gone-Shinra). It was taken out of her hands, however, when Barret decided to yell at both of them simultaneously, which was a talent Yuffie didn't think he had.

"You can't just go making decisions like that on your own, girl! Cause last I checked, you ain't even the leader of Avalanche, and the whole damn point of this ain't rescuing that spiky headed asshole, neither!" He rounded on Cid, completely unconcerned with keeping his gunarm pointed in unthreatening places. "And what the _hell _was that?"

Cid lit another cigarette. "What? You want to go all the way to Midgar in a helicopter?"

"You said you were leaving Shinra behind! They screwed you over!"

There were far too many people in the world, Yuffie decided, with tainted connections to Shinra. She'd _really _have to kick Cid in the shins.

"Tifa's right," Cid said, his expression suggesting he thought Barret was, well, stupid. "Shinra has resources we need. Believe me; I've seen the damn 'resources'. Best way to deal with those fuckers is take what you need from them and try not to give too much in return."

"It doesn't matter who's right or wrong," Nanaki interrupted. "The decision is already made."

"And maybe this'll get me close enough to kill somebody," Yuffie muttered.

•••

Cloud woke up to the familiar skin-crawling feeling that said he should have been cold, but the mako was blocking it. Below zero, then, or his internal defenses would have gladly left him to suffer. The air reeked of snow and damp, the steady burn of magic at once in all of his senses and beyond them completely. Curiosity told him to look up; a will-choking fear held him back, kept him splayed face down on wet stone.

"I can tell you're awake." The voice belonged to a woman, low and mature but unspeakably _strange._

Steeling his nerves, Cloud pushed himself off the ground and into a low crouch.

"Where's my sword?" he rasped, his own voice slightly alien; he sounded as if…as if his vocal chords weren't used to _him. _"I –"

Kneeling in front of him, head canted gently to the side, was Sephiroth…and, then again – not him at all. Purple clouded, inhuman eyes, and there were hairline cracks across his face, glowing faintly green and oozing mako. Cloud, not generally a person given over to hysterics, screamed with an animal fear; kept on screaming as long as he could just to block out that thing's sudden laughter.

"Don't worry." There was something extremely disquieting about that feminine voice coming out of Sephiroth. "You won't die today. You've done me a service."

A roll of nausea in Cloud's stomach blanked out most of the terror. Aeris, he –

"Don't," the thing repeated. "Don't think on her; she deserved what she got."

Magic pulsed, and suddenly Cloud couldn't quite remember what he'd been thinking about, why there was bile in his throat. Even the creature in front of him seemed less twisted, less fundamentally wrong. In fact, his world had narrowed down to purple eyes and that incongruously female voice.

"What are you?" Cloud asked.

"I am Jenova, Calamity from the Skies, to use your human epithet." The facial features warped into a smirk more familiar, and the voice dropped to a smooth baritone. "I am Sephiroth, sainted son of your true queen."

Cloud moaned, low and sickly, and found himself completely unable to react further. "How? Why?"

"None of your concern," Jenova said. "It is not your place…"

She kept talking, but he couldn't pay attention to it anymore. He'd caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye, a few feet away from where he crouched. It sat in a tangle of slick tentacles, single eye wide and staring, purple lips moving with the words it used Sephiroth's body to say; the whole slimy mess pulsed like it was breathing, but there were no lungs to draw air into.

Jenova's head.

Cloud scuttled back, hand scrambling over rock until he got far enough away to vomit. _Nothing, _he felt, would ever make that sight bearable.

_…he pulled himself up to peer into the tank, nausea already twisting his insides. He'd seen a lot of things during the war, but…_

He'd never made it to the war. Hadn't he been too young?

_…he'd never seen anything like this, the monsters curled in on themselves. Their bodies, those twisted things, glowed and moved with an ancient heartbeat._

_"Sephiroth?" he asked. "What is this?"_

A hand tangled roughly in Cloud's hair, yanking his head back with enough force to make his eyes water.

"Those aren't yours!" Jenova snarled; it took Cloud a terrified moment to realize that the voice also echoed through his mind, and had been there in his head since he'd made it to Midgar. "How dare you disrespect me by forgetting how you came to me!"

She flung him away with Sephiroth's strength, and he landed like an abused toy on the floor next to her disembodied head. A tentacle slithered around his neck and yanked him forward, impervious to the strength of even his struggles. He stared into that empty white eye; saw the stars and chaos and everything brilliant and ugly.

Stared into that and couldn't tell whether he hated it or wanted to fall in love with it.

"We will talk more when my son returns," she told him, with her voice and with Sephiroth's and in his own mind. "Rest in my arms, warrior of Jenova."

The sleep spell washed over him like a blessing.

•••

Somewhere, in a little town south of Junon whose population no one would miss, the body Sephiroth had borrowed stopped in the slaughter. He disliked it when Mother made decisions without him, but Jenova had always done as she'd pleased, and Cloud Strife pleased her.

They'd argued about it, as they so rarely did, but he'd given into her whims because she'd suffered enough to deserve it. Still, she knew what he wanted out of Cloud Strife and his unique abilities, and that promise sang in his head now.

Failed experiments were of no use to Sephiroth; nestled in Cloud Strife's soul, mind and memory were something much, much more worthwhile.

Every god needed a prophet, and Sephiroth would have only the best.

_Zack._

••• 

End notes: I don't usually do these, but putting this at the beginning of the chapter would have spoiled somethings. I'm not entirely sure when this story stopped being a Sephiroth/Cloud as such (oh, there _will _be slash, remember who you're talking to). I'm treading into new territory, and am quite likely to fall into the swamp, to use a metaphor for the whole thing. This is an experiment for me, and one of the most plot intensive fics I've ever decided to take on - please bear with me through any rough spots and tell me what you think of it all.

Next chapter is all Avalanche, I think, which makes me sad because I adore writing for Rufus et al.

Koni


	4. Are you a Bad Witch?

These past few months I've been learning what college is like when it decides to cackle and drain your brain of all will to live or think. I think I mentioned something about this chapter focusing on Avalanche in my last author's notes. I, uh, lied. Oops.

Konitsu

•••

When Rufus Shinra was twelve, men from an early rebel faction had tried to murder him in his bed, hoping to weaken Shinra by cutting out the heir. They hadn't counted on President Shinra not giving a rat's ass, or on the twelve year old fighting back. One letter opener through an eye later and Rufus had killed his first man; Tseng's bullets took care of the other three. Tseng had responded to this very simply: he bought Rufus a gun and a dog. The gun Rufus hadn't bothered to name, but the dog had been enthusiastically dubbed Dark Nation and set to tearing out throats when he wasn't accompanying Rufus on morning jogs.

Dark Nation's death had been a minor blow, all in all, but Rufus was still rather sullen about it. The bed was cold and Tseng wouldn't allow him to go out running in the morning without one hundred and fifty pounds of canine as accompaniment. Besides, what was a man supposed to do with a cookie jar full of dog biscuits and no animal to give them to? (And, well, maybe he'd gotten just a bit used to unwavering loyalty and getting slobbered on.)

None of this meant he'd expected to come into his office one morning to see Tseng holding a puppy. Tseng looked acutely uncomfortable cradling a small, wriggling animal, as if he fully expected it to explode at any moment. Tseng wasn't a dog person, and he wasn't a cat person; Rufus thought the fish might belong to him, it being one of those gorgeous fighting ones that ate any other fish that came too close. The Turks kept the fish in their office, and Reno had named it The Masticator.

Rufus canted his head to the side. "Can I ask about the dog or is this one of those 'Reno did it' things that makes me want half a bottle of aspirin?"

Tseng set the puppy down on the ground and it streaked toward Rufus as if it had special powers that could sense humans who knew what the hell to do with a small furry animal.

"Dark Nation's replacement," Tseng explained. "You were right when you said we're facing threats from two sides. You need a constant bodyguard, and this sort is the least likely to kill you while you're sleeping."

The dog's oversized paws and ears promised that it would grow up huge, perhaps larger than Dark Nation, and its black fur was thick and shaggy. Rufus didn't foresee it being much of a bodyguard now, but with the right training and care it could very easily be his first warning system and line of defense. Very few things in nature were more refined than a predator's teeth. Rufus bent down to scratch it approvingly behind the ears.

"And I'll be able to go jogging again without giving you an aneurysm?"

"Indeed, Sir."

He honestly couldn't tell if Tseng was smiling at him or not.

"Bloody Horizon," Rufus declared suddenly, scooping the dog into his arms. "A good name for the times."

•••

Shera greeted Avalanche at the door as if it wasn't odd for them to be showing up all of a sudden, looking collectively confused and sullen. She didn't note Cloud's conspicuous absence or ask any difficult questions, just ushered them inside with a distracted glaze to her eyes and turned back to the pile of mechanical bits that had taken over the kitchen table. Cid wandered over to poke at it, making disapproving noises in the back of his throat.

"And you bitch when I make a mess. What the hell is this supposed to be?"

"The water purifier's broken again," Shera explained, "Somebody's gotta fix it; you know the well's tainted with mako."

Cid snorted. "And you think _you _can? Fuck, woman, you can't even fix the coffee pot half the time."

Shera dipped her head, staring at her work. "Someone has to, since you're not here. Captain."

"Just don't fuck it up."

"Oh man, I am just filled to the brim with the _warm fuzzies, _really." Yuffie elbowed her way to the table. "You two have a really magical relationship, you know that? Promise me you'll let me be the maid of honor at your wedding!"

Cid and Shera's shared look indicated that they'd finally banded together on something - their mutual assurance that Yuffie was absolutely insane.

"The Captain is -"

"We've got a fucking emergency," Cid interrupted Shera's explanation of whatever it was 'the Captain is'.

"And not in the 'oh no, the toaster broke' sort of way, either," Yuffie added.

Shera wiped grease stained hands off on the front of her slacks. "What's wrong? Does it have to do with why Mr. Strife isn't here as well?"

Barret took this as his personal comment cue. "Fuck him!"

Shera backed up a step, and so did Yuffie. The force of Barret's anger was enough to drive any sane person five feet away, but the relatively small and definitely packed kitchen didn't leave much room for retreat. Yuffie could only hope that her ninja skills would save her if he'd remembered to reload his gunarm and felt like taking the past few days out on poor innocent...everythings.

"I'll take that as a yes, then," Shera said.

"You don't need to know the fucking details." Cid grabbed her arm and steered her toward the living room. "I'll give you the condensed version if you promise not to yap about it too much."

"Don't ya just wanna _cuddle_ Cid?" Yuffie asked the rest of the room at large. "He's so _cuddly."_

_  
_Vincent cuffed her across the back of the head, but she knew he was amused, deep down inside.

Freed from their obligation to stand around looking awkward while Cid and Shera oozed their dysfunction to the world, Barret and Tifa sank into chairs. Barret's chair expressed the opinion that it was not built to withstand 200 pounds of muscle, but Barret definitely wasn't taking shit from furniture today and the chair obeyed his whims. Vincent tucked himself into a corner. Red dropped to the floor in front of the oven, his expression suggesting, in a decidedly feline way, that humans were all very confusing and mentally unstable. Yuffie could just feel the happy vibes radiating from the group. It was a good thing Cait Sith had been left outside, powered down and silent, or she might have been absolutely overwhelmed by the collective joy.

"Don't see why we agreed to work with Shinra," Barret growled.

Tifa sighed and buried her head in her hands. "Because they're the only option we have right now. I know you hate them, Barret; _so do I. _But...I just have to keep reminding myself that I love Cloud more than I hate them, and that makes it worth going forward. We can't do this on our own, we just can't."

"We can do more than you think. We could - "

"Our small group has very little power," Vincent interrupted. "Especially now." Now that they were down two members, he _very sensitively _didn't add. "We are aligning with the devil we know to face the devil we don't."

Red sighed. "The decision is made, and we'll abide by it."

Yuffie, for once in her life, kept her mouth shut. Agreeing with Barret would just rile him up again, and right now the opinion was four to two. Democracy never worked, Yuffie decided firmly, because the majority was stupid.

•••

Sephiroth might have found it disconcerting or at least incongruous, staring at his own body inhabited by something that was irrefutably Not Him. He couldn't find anything about Mother strange, though, and sometimes it suited her to be in a human body and have the freedom of human dexterity. Sephiroth, his true form still penned up in crystallized mako, understood how she felt. He hated the feeling that surrounded him when he was forced to send his consciousness back to his own body; imprisoned, helpless, caught.

If it pleased Jenova to borrow the clone body while he was out elsewhere, he would hardly begrudge her. She was the only reason he existed, after all, the only reason the clones were allowed their pathetic half-lives. Sephiroth would rather travel about in the clone bodies – they were more stable, stronger – but anyone with even a trace of Jenova's cells would do for swift 'visits'. More Soldiers had deserted than Sephiroth had ever realized, but now he was putting their impudence to good use. Unfortunately, their level of Jenova cells was so low that they generally couldn't put up with him.

As he walked into the cave, in fact, this body's functions were undergoing that inconvenient process of liquidation. Sephiroth could feel the blood and bile leaking out of the corners of its mouth, and something fastidious in him wanted a towel and perhaps some soap. In lieu of toiletries, he simply yanked his consciousness out of the Soldier-puppet and nestled it back into the mind of his clone, who put up much less resistance.

The Soldier-puppet gave a horrified croak, suddenly yanked back into his own existence, an existence which now consisted mostly of excruciating pain. He crumpled at the mouth of the cave, but Sephiroth paid him no mind. The predators would drag him off, once he finally got done dying.

Jenova gently uncurled herself from the clone's mind, but did not leave entirely. It was one of his mother's many talents that she could be more than one place at a time, skipping from body to body as easily as one changed clothing. Sephiroth felt the fissures on the clone's face close up as Jenova's considerable force mostly abandoned it, decreasing the pressure on the body. Sephiroth's vision cleared, and he was fully in a familiar body once again.

He spared a glance toward Cloud Strife, tangled up in Jenova's many limbs. The child still looked weak, in Sephiroth's opinion, too small in both body and power. Still, mother found him beautiful –

'Pretty' she called him. Sephiroth snorted. Jenova sent a gentle tug of chastisement down their mental link.

_His power is of use to me. I won't see him harmed._

"He's human," Sephiroth said, unable to keep the note of scorn out of his voice. Mother herself had taught him that humans were pathetic, weak, unable to do anything useful at all.

_Even humans can be tools, _Jenova explained soothingly. _He is nowhere near you, my son, but he is unique. You've seen for yourself._

That, at least, Sephiroth could agree with. He had no idea what set Strife apart from the rest of the fools scuttling over the surface of mother's planet, but something did indeed set him apart. Who else could hold in their body a separate soul, without being utterly destroyed? Even the clones were stupid, weak things who barely had a thought of their own beyond their worship for him. Strife was more or less intact.

More or less.

_His damage makes him better for me. _One of Jenova's limbs slid almost gently across Strife's cheek. _So beautiful, with the cracks in his mind and his deep, deep confusion. He only wants a mother. So lonely, without his mother._

Sephiroth tried to tamp down on the flair of jealousy. "He doesn't deserve you as a mother."

_No, no. Only you deserve me, my most beloved son. But most sons do not deserve their mothers. You will always be heir, but it is good to have second sons, the ones that serve the firsts._

"As long as I get what's been promised to me," Sephiroth said. He didn't often make ultimatums with his mother – who was he, to negotiate with someone as great and beautiful as she? – but this was one argument he had not let end without getting something out of it.

_You will have your gift. Even after this warrior has lived past his usefulness, you will have your strong one._

Sephiroth allowed himself a small smile. "Thank you mother. You are generous and kind."

_You flatter me, my son. Now, rest. We will have much to do, after he wakes._

•••

"Call me crazy, but something is telling me that this is a bad idea."

"You're going to fall over the railing," Elena said, completely ignoring Reno's portent of doom.

Reno scowled at her and stubbed his cigarette out on the railing he was leaning on, his torso dangling dangerous out over open air. Reno was scared of very few things, and chalked this up to hitting his head one too many times in his youth. As long as it helped him along in his job, he didn't give a shit if he had permanent brain damage.

"Look, I'm being serious."

Elena stared at him incredulously. "What?"

Reno scowled. "I'm – being – serious," he enunciated slowly. "Something about this is giving me the heebies. Like someone just told me to go pet the rabid doggy."

"I have no idea why super villains with mind control would make you feel uneasy, Reno."

Reno wished Rude had been able to come with him on Escort the Terrorists duty, but Tseng had wanted his muscle in Shinra Tower – 'just in case'. That left Elena. Reno didn't dislike Elena; she was a sweet girl and a good Turk all at the same time, which pointed to some sort of special insanity that Reno could appreciate. But Elena's sweetness was mixed in with a healthy dose of feminine superiority and teasing, and she just didn't trust him the way Rude did.

Very few people trusted Reno the way Rude did. It was generally considered better for their health.

"Before it was bad enough," he continued, deciding to ignore her sarcasm. She did it to him often enough. "But I didn't feel like I was doing something completely fucking stupid. Things were going to shit, before. This has 'End of the Fucking World' written all over it."

"It'll be alright." Elena gripped the railing and stared into the horizon, soft blonde hair blowing gently into her face. She looked like some heroine stepped straight out of a romance novel, except instead of a low cut gown she was sporting a smartly tailored blue suit.

"How do you know?"

"Have you ever met something that Shinra couldn't blow up or run over?" she asked, favoring Reno with a smile.

"You're just hoping Tseng'll finally give you that comet materia."

"Oh, _hell yes."_

•••

Tifa had thought that facing pilots from Shinra would be bad enough, just knowing that they were somehow tainted by the company. She hadn't been expecting the two blue suited devils that swung down off the ladder of the giant airship. She certainly hadn't steeled herself for Reno, fully healed and grinning cockily and looking not at all like someone who had cheerfully executed hundreds with one push of the button. He looked a bit like he needed a bath, actually.

"Look, it's all my favorite people!" Reno exclaimed, opening his arms wide as if he expected some sort of heartfelt group hug. "I love you guys. Have I ever told you guys that I just love you?"

"Reno, stop being an idiot," Elena said, coming up behind him.

Elena was smiling at Avalanche warmly, almost benevolently; like someone who was coming to help clear up an unfortunate difficulty with the taxes.

"I think," Reno continued, undaunted, "that when people put you into the hospital with three broken ribs, you form this special bond."

Tifa clenched her hands at her sides and tried to take a deep cleansing breath. She supposed it was a good thing Barret was still inside, or Reno might have gotten a bullet right in the brain. She was having a hard time keeping her own temper under control, staring at Reno's eerily serene eyes. Despite all of his talking and all of his violence, there was an unnatural stillness to his eyes and expression, an acceptance of what was.

That was the sort of thing that allowed you to kill hundreds of people, Tifa decided. The most dangerous sort of acceptance in the world.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, and managed to keep her voice level.

"Things are getting a bit complicated, Miss Lockheart," Elena said. "President Shinra just wanted to make sure you all arrive in one piece."

"Safe and sound." Reno shoved his hands in his pockets and grinned, all feral teeth. "I swear you'll be safe as babes in a cradle."

Tifa nodded. "I'll get the others."

Cid was at the door, eyeing the Highwind. When Tifa walked past him into the house, he stepped out toward the airship. He looked about as happy as Tifa had ever seen him, which meant he wasn't cursing up, down and sideways about something. Hell, he was practically approaching misty-eyed.

It was, perhaps, a tad disturbing.

"Barret," she said, walking into the cluttered kitchen, "we're leaving now."

She swept her gaze over the room to accompany Vincent, Yuffie, and Red XIII as well. Tifa didn't know if Reeve would leave Cait Sith 'parked' outside, powered down and empty, and quite frankly she didn't care. She wasn't going out of her way to make sure that man had all of his insidious toys handy.

"Sounded like they got the airship," Barret said, pushing himself up out of his chair. "At least we won't be squishing into no helicopter."

"The Turks are here."

She tensed for an outburst, but Barret just sighed and shook his head.

"Shoulda known," he grumbled. "I swear, fate's just laughing at us. She's a bitch."

"They're probably under orders not to kill us." Vincent pushed himself away from the wall he'd settled against. He was strangely unfinished without his cloak; exposed. "I doubt we're in any immediate danger, but remain on your guard."

As if any of them had any plans to drop it.

Yuffie raised her hand. "I just want everyone to know I think this is the stupidest damn thing we've done so far. And we've done _a lot _of stupid things. I mean, this might be the stupidest thing I've ever done and I think I kind of win in the 'oh look, stupid things to do!' department." She took a deep breath and then squared her shoulders. "You know. Just saying."

"Your opinions are noted," Red remarked dryly.

"Good. Now I can say 'I told you so' when we all die terrible deaths."

Tifa put a hand on Yuffie's arm and gave her a slight smile. "Don't worry. We'll get through this just fine."

Yuffie rolled her eyes. "Ya, I'll believe it when I see it."

It was a good thing Tifa still remembered quite clearly what it was like being a teenager. At sixteen, she wouldn't have been fighting in this at all, much less spewing out portents of doom and stupidity.

They all shuffled out of the kitchen. Tifa called out a soft goodbye to Shera, who was cloistered in the mechanical workroom with some something-or-other Cid had set her to working on. Shera's reply was muffled, as if she had something in her mouth (probably a penlight), but it sounded encouraging enough.

Cid was nowhere to be seen when they got outside, and Tifa guessed that he was already in the airship. Probably scaring the hell out of whatever poor sap had been put in charge in the captain's absence, if Tifa had learned anything about Cid. Barret, Yuffie, and Red seemed to be setting up a combined glaring effort against the two Turks, but Vincent just nodded at them as he walked past.

"Hey," Reno whispered, almost too low for Tifa to hear, and nudged Elena in the side. "Vincent Valentine. Checked his file, remember?"

Elena whistled, obviously impressed. Tifa shook her head and chalked it up to yet another of Vincent's little mysteries. If they were lucky, they might never have to ask the man about his quite blatantly complicated past.

"After you, ma'am," Reno said to her, waggling his eyebrow suggestively as he tugged on the rope ladder that led up to the deck.

Tifa glared at him and swung up on the ladder, knowing she was giving him an eyeful and not giving a damn at all. If he tried anything, she'd kick him in the face and send him down to breaking a couple more ribs.

•••

Zack had kind of gotten used to being dead. It wasn't as if he really had a choice in the matter, so he hadn't argued the point. He probably wasn't even supposed to be around to consider arguing. Despite the fact that his existence was little more than a wisp of something in a whole hell of a lot of nothing, he was still there. He still _existed._

And maybe 'nothing' was a misnomer. He was surrounded by a whole hell of a lot of Cloud Strife, who had a sickening amount of nothing hanging around him. Cloud was a bucket with a slow leak that was growing swifter, and no matter how much Zack tried to fill Cloud's mind back up he knew that he was fighting a losing battle. Still, he'd never been one to give up.

It was touch and go, whether or not he could connect with the bits of something in Cloud to pass on some words, a memory. That one time in – Junon, maybe? – he managed a full few sentences, muddled and mostly incoherent, but sentences. Unfortunately, he was fairly sure he'd only succeeded in confusing Cloud more than he was already confused.

Zack thought Aeris had been around, had felt that light of hers once or twice, her power and presence reaching out for him in soothing green. But Aeris was of the lifestream, the place where he was supposed to be and the thing that wanted to take them there, and he had to shrink back from her. He loved Aeris to the bone and deeper, but she wasn't the one who needed him now.

Cloud needed him now.

Cloud, however, had gone somewhere Zack couldn't reach him. Considering Zack was effectively _in _Cloud, that was more than mildly vexing. Either something was actively blocking him from the rest of Cloud or Cloud was too damn muddled for anything to connect properly. Neither option was one Zack particularly liked.

And then – something. Definitely something. Something slick, twined green and purple like a spreading, painful bruise. Something, two somethings, both familiar but in different ways. One touch was alien, discomforting, nearly painful. The second…the second Zack would know anywhere, on his body, in his mind, anywhere. Even if he was crazy and lost and strained, Zack would know Sephiroth out of millions.

One more person to take care of, it seemed. And Zack would do whatever it took, dead man or not.


End file.
